Critique of NATO bombing

By David McReynolds, War Resisters League, 14 September 1995

Opponents of violence have, from the time the war in Bosnia began,
sought to support any peaceful solution, and has been aware of the
profound complexity of a situation which has its roots in events
occuring hundreds of years ago, as well as very recently. With others,
we have learned more about former Yugsoslavia, and have found that
each party to this conflict feels itself deeply aggrieved, that each
party has committed terrible crimes in the course of defending its
interests, and has sought to resolve issues on the battlefield rather
than around the conference table.

We do not ignore the special horror of the ethnic cleansing by the
Bosnian Serbs, nor the painful tearing apart of the fabric of those
parts of Bosnia that had been truly multi-cultural. We have been
particularly shocked at the deliberate and systematic targeting of
civilians in the Serbian seige of Sarajevo and in the shelling of
Tuzla, as well as mass killings reported to have occured elsewhere.

We have opposed lifting the arms embargo because this would open the
flood gates to the arms merchants of the world and would insure that
the conflict would be fought to the very final end possible, leaving a
situation such as in Lebanon. There has been no chance that an arms
embargo could be lifted on the Bosnian Muslims without the Russians
feeling compelled to supply arms to the Bosnian Serbs. We are aware of
French and British charges that the United States is engaging in
covert arming of the Bosnian Muslims. At the least, as observers on
the scene have reported, the arms embargo is incomplete. Croatia has
been able to obtain new jet aircraft and there is no shortage of small
arms on the Muslim side.

It has been clear that the course of the war has been so brutal that
the hope of a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-confessional Bosnia
has been lost. However unjust and unfair, some divison of the country
among the three main warring parties, Croatian, Muslim, and Serbian,
has become inevitable. The United States has been slow to recognize
this and only now is willing to accept a solution which it had
rejected over a year ago - the effective partitioning of Bosnia.

Just as serious negotiations began, the United States pressed very
hard, with the support of France, for a massive air response to any
further Serb attacks on the so-called “safe areas”. (We
say “so-called” because they have proven anything but
safe, and because they were never effectively demilitarized—the
Bosnian Muslims have used the “safe havens” as launching
points for military attacks on surrounding Serb-held areas).

Following a recent shelling of Sarajevo—we assume by the Serbian
Bosnians, though they have denied this—NATO, led by the U.S.,
launched heavy air strikes tied to the demand that the Serbs withdraw
all heavy artillery from the area near Sarajevo.

The Serbs responded that their own civilians faced attack by the
Muslims and asked fora cease as a condition for withdrawing their
heavy weapons. There was no agreement on a cease fire. Instead we have
been two weeks of heavy air attacks through all parts of Serbian-held
Bosnia. Many in this country have argued that the Serbs would
understand force if it was used, and would meet UN/NATO demands almost
at once if there was such a truly serious show of force.

There can no longer be any question that a massive show of force has
been tried. Instead of securing the cooperation of the Bosnian Serbs,
it has led to their defiance, their refusal to withdraw the heavy
weapons. More dangerous, it has inflamed public opinion in Russia, the
traditional ally of the Serbs, to the point that the Russian
government now charges that NATO is engaged in a policy of genocide in
Serbia. That charge is certainly wide of the mark but U.S. denials of
civilian casualties are utter nonsense. This is Orwellian double talk
which should embarrass any U.S. official asked to speak it. It is
impossible to launch two weeks of heavy air attacks on a small area
and not kill civilians. And even if the only persons torn to bits by
the bombs were military, this still has put NATO at war with the
Serbian Bosnians.

We are no longer talking about peace keeping or even peace making, but
about war making. It is particularly disgusting to see each branch of
the U.S. armed services vie for a chance to test its own latest
weapons, in hope of seeing how well they work in battle, and in order
to bolster later demands on the U.S. treasury for new funding.

The problems of Bosnia are problems which will be solved by the
parties involved or they cannot be solved. The United States is not
one of those parties, yet we have effectively been doing most of the
bombing—bringing the U.S. into the war on one of the sides.

We demand the immediate, unconditional end of the NATO bombing of any
part of former Yugoslavia. We call for continued and tighter embargoes
on the shipment of military goods of any kind to Croatia, to Serbia,
or to the Croatian, Muslim, or Serbian groupings within Bosnia. We
extend our special support to all those in former Yugoslavia who are
refusing military service. We urge they be treated as the political
refugees they are and admitted to this country. We know that in every
part of former Yugoslavia there are men and women who refuse to see
their sisters and brothers as enemies, who remain determined to create
a civic and responsible society. Our hopes are with such people, as
efforts to restore a civil society in former Yugoslavia continue at
great risk to those involved. In this context, U.S. actions have
gravely damaged prospects for a peace and we believe may also
constitute steps toward drawing the United States into the conflict
directly, without having gone to Congress.